Prescribing Naloxone to Actively Injecting Heroin Users: A Program to Reduce Heroin Overdose Deaths
Abstract:Heroin overdose deaths have increased alarmingly in Chicago over the past decade. Naloxone, an opioid antagonist with no abuse potential, has been used to reverse opiate overdose in emergency medical settings for decades. We describe here a program to educate opiate users in the prevention of opiate overdose and its reversal with intramuscular naloxone.